L 



W 

(JTommoiilvicnltlj of Ulassacljusctts, 



ANNUAL REPOrvT 



OF thj: 



SPECIAL AGENT 



Of THE 



BOARD OF EDUCATION. 



J A N U iV Jl Y , 18 7 5 



BOSTON; 

WRIGHT &. POTTER, STATE PRINTERS, 
7!t Milk Street (corner of Federal). 

1875. 



(^ontmaittoolflj of glassa^jus^ffs. 



AKIS^UAL BEPOPtT 



OF TELE 



SPECIAL AGENT 



OF THE 



BOARD OF EDUCATIO^^, 



Jai^uaet, 1875. 



BOSTON : 

WRIGHT & POTTER, STATE PRINTERS, 

79 Milk Street (corner of Federae). 

1875. 






"^ O.ofD. 



REPORT 



Gentlemen of the Board of Education : — 

During the past year, I have visited 391 schools in 74 towns 
and cities. I have observed the methods of teaching and 
management, and in nearly all have taught one or more 
topics, and made suggestions and brief addresses. Exclusive of 
the exercises in the eight Teachers' Institutes attended in 
the autumn, I have given fifty- seven lectures on educational 
topics to teachers and to people. In my visits to the schools, 
I have generally been accompanied, as heretofore, by the school 
committee or by the superintendent of schools. I take great 
pleasure in acknowledging, in this connection, the uniform 
courtesy extended to me by school officers, teachers, children, 
and by all with whom I have been associated. The general 
interest manifested leads me to hope that my labors serve to 
encourage and stimulate to greater activity those engaged 
in the work of education. 

I am happy to note, as a sign of progress in public sentiment, 
the approval by committees and people of rational methods of 
teaching. This is shown by the demand for good teachers, and 
the effort to retain those who have proved themselves com- 
petent to teach. It is shown in the increased attention 
bestowed, especially in the larger places, upon the arrangement 
of courses of study, in all of which more time is given to object- 
teaching and illustrations, and to general exercises. In many 
towns, evening schools are established, and meetings of 
teachers are held regularly. Provision is made for the 
attendance of teachers upon Teachers' Institutes, and upon the 
State and County Associations ; and teachers gladly avail 
themselves of the privileges thus oflfered. 



The required study of drawing, so long neglected, is coming 
to be recognized asTi useful and necessary branch of education, 
and is receiving considerable attention in many of the schools. 
Evening classes of adults for the practice of mechanical 
drawing have been started this year for the first time, in some 
of the larger manufacturing places. Those which have come 
under my observation, as those at Adams and Holyoke, are well 
attended and give assurance of great usefulness. The students 
in these classes, embrace operatives, book-keepers and over- 
seers in the mills, tradesmen, and mechanics of all trades. This 
branch of education is greatly indebted to Mr. Walter Smith, 
State Director of Art-Education, whose skill in delineation, 
and not less in statement, encourages the most timid to take 
the first step^the step which costs — in teaching this new art. 

Another sign of progress, and a very hopeful one, is the 
relaxing of the hold upon the district system, which seems 
to have been particularly firm in some portions of this section 
of the State. It would now be easy, I think, to obtain the 
signatures of the most influential citizens in nearly all the towns 
at present under this system, for its immediate abolition. The 
school committees would be a unit in this direction. Instead of 
awaiting the slow, but inevitable process of sloughing off, will 
they not make and circulate petitions for the removal altogether, 
and at once, of this excrescence upon the school system? In 
several instances, the district system has been abolished since 
my previous visit. One result which uniformly follows the 
abolition, is better school-houses. In many places the necessity 
for better houses is forcing abolition upon the town. The 
sooner the towns make a virtue of this necessity, the better for 
all concerned. With the abolition of the districts, wise counsels 
should prevail as to the grading of the schools ; as to the 
locating, heating, lighting and ventilation of houses, building or 
remodelling ; as to the several acts relating to uniting districts 
with those of adjoining towns ; to conveying to school children 
living at great distances ; to uniting several towns under one 
supervision, etc., etc. 

It would be agreeable to say much more in commendation of 
the schools. Justice demands that I should testify to the 
faithfulness of the teachers in general, and I might specify 
important particulars in which very many of the schools are 



eminently successful, and particular schools which are models of 
excellence, but the brevity of this Eeport forbids farther 
details ; and I pass to notice a few of the needs of the schools, 
such as result mainly from thg want of the most eulightened 
public sentiment. I will specify first the need of a more 
efficient supervision. In some instances, the towns grudgiugly 
pay the pittance charged for the altogether too-infrequent visits 
of the committee to the schools ; and in many, the task of 
superintending the schools has come to be so thankless, that 
those best fitted for the duties refuse to accept the office of 
school committee. Unquestionably, the worst possible form of 
supervision is that which results from the district system, where 
the selection of the teachers is left to a prudential committee, 
and the oversight of their work, perhaps, to a sub-committee of 
the general committee to whom are assigned the schools of a 
particular section of the town. The best results are secured by 
placing the inspection and direction of the schools in the hands 
of a single person, competent and able to devote himself to 
giving advice in all matters pertaining to the teaching and 
general management of the schools, he acting under the full 
committee as an advisory and authoritative board. This plan is 
virtually adopted in most of the larger places and in many of 
the smaller ones, and uniformly with most satisfactory results. 
An important duty devolved upon the school committee by 
statute, is that of assistino- the teacher in the orsfanization of the 
school. This includes the preparation of a course of study and 
the arrangement of the classes. It would seem, also, to imply 
that previous to entering upon the duties of the school, the 
■.teachers should bo definitely advised as to the particular work 
to be accomplished, according to the plan of the committee. 
Another duty of the committee is to prescribe text-books to be 
used, and to sec that none others l)e introduced into the schools. 
Is it less a duty to see that all the pupils are furnished with 
books, and especially with slate and pencil, at the opening 
session of the school? The children are frequently many days 
without books, and even an entire term ; in many instances 
without slate and pencil. However watchful the teacher may be, 
no ingenuity can keep idle hands out of mischief. The slate and 
pencil are indispensable for every school-child, and delinquency 
here should be anticipated by the school committee, and 



6 

provided for at the start. Another duty which devolves upon 
the school committee, is to provide the schools with suitable 
apparatus aucl reference-books, and all needed appliances for 
carrying on the work of the schools. With rare exceptions, 
the schools are perfectly barren of every means of illustration, 
except, indeed, the blackboard and crayon, and these are 
frequently nothing of what they ought to be, and everything 
that they ought not to be. The boards are both short and 
narrow ; they are rough or glazed and greasy ; their surface is 
soft and gummy, or worn with age ; they hang dangling from 
nails with straps or strings ; the good name they bear is often 
a misnomer ; and the crayon is yet too often a large, shapeless 
lump of flinty chalk, and occasionally there is none even of 
that. It is provided by statute that the school committee may 
expend twenty-five per cent, of the town's share of the income of 
the school fund for the purchase of appfjratus and books of refer- 
ence. If this duty were faithfully discharged for three years, and 
if the judicious use of such purchases were secured in the schools, 
their efficiency would be increased full twenty-five per cent. 
The bare mention of these several duties, and they are but a 
part of what is required of the school-committee man, will serve 
to show how largely the success of the schools depends upon 
him, and the necessity of bestowing the office with pretty full 
power upon one well qualified for the duties, and suitably com- 
pensating and otherwise supporting him in their discharge. 

From a misapprehension of the ends to be accomplished by 
the schools, many persons are employed to teach who have 
neither zeal nor fitness for their calling ; and even well-qualified 
teachers are sometimes compelled to pursue traditional and often 
irrational methods in the schools. In very many, the whole 
time is spent in brief recitations of mere words, and where 
something more is attempted than committing to memory mean- 
ingless expressions, the facts learned are so disassociated as to 
be of little or no use to the learner. The pages of arithmetics, 
geographies and grammars are committed to memory, but the 
knowledge of arithmetic, geography and grammar is not ac- 
quired. This results from classifying the schools wholly upon 
the pages passed over in the text-books, and frequently requires 
half as many classes in a single branch as there are pupils, and 
in all the branches recitations of eight or ten minutes throughout 



the day. Whereas, if the classification were made according to 
the knowledge actually possessed by the pupils, or upon what 
is really the proper basis, — the development of the mind, — the 
classes might be reduced to a very small number, and the schools 
be made to assist nature, in aid of which alone they can in 
justice be maintained. 

The aphorism, "Teach but one thing at a time," is quite too 
literally applied in the schools generally ; thus, mental and writ- 
ten arithmetic, as at present pursued, are distinct studies, and 
not only require separate text-books, but the slate and pencil 
are not allowed as an aid in the one, whilst the mental process 
is equally ignored in the other. Now, the mental process and the 
written expression are naturally associated, the latter being the 
sign, the former the thing signified ; hence they should be taught 
together, the one for the sake of the other. So in the study of 
language ; reading, composition, and grammatical analysis, which 
are mutually dependent, are frequently taught as independently 
as if one were a branch of physics, one of metaphysics, the 
other of mathematics. So, again, in the study of geography ; 
it is a study of petty details, of particular rivers or mountains, 
seldom of systems. A great element of beauty in this study 
is the relations which exist in the difierent features of the earth, 
as between river and mountain systems ; between towns and 
river navigation or railroad routes ; between bays and harbors 
and commercial cities ; between climates and peoples, soils and 
industries ; between the directions and elevations of land, masses 
and productions ; — without these relations the study of geogra- 
phy is as empty of all mental aliment as the wind. By thus 
clothing these skeleton forms of the school-room with their re- 
lations of beauty, by thus associating things which have a nat- 
ural dependence in the branches taught, they come to be a true 
means of education. And, again, in learning to read ; if, instead 
of being required to learn the alphabet, then to spell out in the 
most painful manner the words of the reading lesson, the child 
should be led to observe the parts and properties of objects, 
then to make oral expressions of the thought excited, then to 
write these expressions upon the slate or board, and finally to 
read these written expressions, the slow and laborious process 
of learning to read would become an incidental means of devel- 
oping the powers of observation, memory and imagination, and 



8 

the child would at once acquire the habit of expressing his 
thoughts intelligently, orally and in writing. He would read 
with expression, and learn the elementary sounds and letters of 
the language with perfect ease ; and with proper objects as the 
occasion for the exercise of his faculties, he would at the same 
time become familiar with the elements of the natural sciences, 
of grammatical analysis, of history, and of many other things. 
In fine, to secure the best results in the schools as they are, the 
needs are an enlightened public sentiment, a careful supervision, 
and knowledge, skill and enthusiasm in the teachers. I esteem 
it a privilege to have been permitted to labor for the promotion 
of these means. 

Having previously become pretty well acquainted with the 
methods of teaching in the schools generally, I have thought it 
advisable, for the past year, more frequently to assemble the 
teachers and people for illustrative exercises. and addresses, even 
if less of my time was spent in the schools. This seems to me 
to be good policy for the future. 

GEO. A. WALTON, 

Agent for the Western Counties. 
Westfield, January 1, 1875. 




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